Jonas Mekas was born in 1922 in the rural village of Semeniškiai, Lithuania. Currently lives and works in New York. In 1944, he and his brother Adolfas were caught by the Nazis and sent to a labor camp in Elmshorn, Germany. After the war he studied philosophy at the University of Mainz. At the end of 1949, the two brothers traveled to New York thanks to Refugee Organization of the United Nations.
Two weeks after arriving, Mekas borrowed money to compare his first Bolex camera and started filming a few moments of his life. Soon he became involved in the movement of avant-garde cinema of the United States. In 1954, along with his brother, started Film Culture magazine, the publication of cinema's most important moment again. In 1958 he began writing his legendary column "Film Journal" in the Village Voice. In 1962 founded the Cooperative filmmakers, and in 1964 the Cinematheque, which would become the Anthology Film Archive, one of the most important avant-garde film archives.
Mekas has published more than twenty books of poetry and prose, plus continue his work as a filmmaker. Among his films include The Brig, Scenes from the Life of Andy Warhol, As I Was Moving Ahead I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty and Sleepless Nights Stories. His work as an artist has been exhibited at the Pompidou Centre and shall bind, PS1 Contemporary Art Center MoMA. In 2007 the Center for the Jonas Mekas Visual Arts opened in Vilnius, Lithuania.
